Teen novels

I am working on a teen book, based in the late fifties as you know...lol. I still think back to my teen years, I spent alot of time with the teens in the neighborhood...not to mention a few too many teenage boys...lol.

Well, to be honest, I think nothing is too far. I feel if you go back and read some other books about teens you'll find murder, sex, drugs, anything and everything!

Best advice anyone gave me when I was starting out in YA was to READ. Read CURRENT books - YAs that have been published in the last five years, say. I was astounded by how much the market had changed (and I'm not that old!) and you'll be able to see what writers get away with nowadays. Talking about sex? Definitely. Doing it? Some of them, yes. Read, read, read. It can only help!

Heh! I was just wondering about this myself yesterday.

The only useful advice I've heard--and I've never published a teen novel, so take this with a grain of salt--is that kids know very well when you're patronizing them, and nothing infuriates them more. If you start choking back on the sex and death and horror, when the story leads logically to that, out of a feeling that one must protect the kids, your readership will see that, perhaps more clearly than you do, and they will put the book down and wish plagues of locusts upon you.

I take out 6-8 YA books every time I go to the library. The librarians used to look at me funny, but now they're used to it. It might be a little creepier if you're a 50-something dude, but that would be a good day to wear your "I'm a Writer" tee shirt. ;] Seriously, though, ask your library's youth librarian what all the kids are reading these days, and grab books that are cover out in the YA section. You'll find a goldmine of info.

Once caveat--do NOT try to "talk cool" unless you're actually good at it naturally. The parents will buy the books for the kids because they sound "street" or whatever, and the kids will just make fun of them cuz we're old and we sounds like idiots if we're not actually comfortable with the lingo.

I occassionally pay a "tween" girl I used to babysit for $5/chapter to tell me everything she hates about my YA work. It's the best money I've ever spend on my writing.

Kristen

Writing a young adult novel is something I've always wanted to do. Written bits and pieces, here and there, but never really stuck with anything. I am thinking about it more seriously now though. This weekend I definitely have to check out a bunch of books from the library to study.

I have an idea in mind and would really love to run with it. I'm glad I found this little corner of the board, I'll definitely come here more often.

There are different levels of teen novels, too. A book geared towards a 13 year old may not be of any interest to a 19 year old, and a 14 year old boy is reading completely different stuff than a 14 year old girl.

If you don't have teenagers, make friends with someone who does, and watch them. They're a completely alien culture, and should be observed before writing about or for them.

Do what I do - pretend you're Jane Goodall, and they're all a bunch of gorillas.

A good place to observe teens is a coffee hangout...they are being "themselves" without parents present. It is shocking!

Of course, I have a 14 year old who brings his buddies over, and I like to eavesdrop on them when they are hanging out in our basement.

I'm am shocked at how teenagers act these days. And I'm not old, just 25. I know when I was in high school there were things that shocked me, but these days it just seems worse. I'm not sure that I would want to include a lot of what they say and do in my books, even if that mean being unpopular.

aspiringwriter said:

I was in the library this afternoon looking for a book called Summerlandand was unable to find it...but it's in the bookstore. I'm getting into writing teen novels more than ever...maybe it's because there are more kids perhaps?

Thanks everyone for your input so far.

Click to expand...

Summerland by Michael Chabon?
Or the Binding of the Blade series by L.B. Graham with the first book called Beyond the Summerland?
L.B. Graham's books are for teenagers, I believe, if you're interested and they do make for a very good read.

PattiTheWicked said:

There are different levels of teen novels, too. A book geared towards a 13 year old may not be of any interest to a 19 year old, and a 14 year old boy is reading completely different stuff than a 14 year old girl.

If you don't have teenagers, make friends with someone who does, and watch them. They're a completely alien culture, and should be observed before writing about or for them.

Do what I do - pretend you're Jane Goodall, and they're all a bunch of gorillas.

Click to expand...

That's the first time I've ever been referred to as a gorilla. ()p

PattiTheWicked said:

If you don't have teenagers, make friends with someone who does, and watch them. They're a completely alien culture, and should be observed before writing about or for them.

Do what I do - pretend you're Jane Goodall, and they're all a bunch of gorillas.

Click to expand...

Actually, I think you should be careful about that. It's never a good idea to write a book de haut en bas - adding a bunch of transitory 'cool' words, referring to up-to-date fashions and current concerns might make your book sizzlingly relevant when you send it out to a publisher, but it will be seriously dated by next year. Besides, that stuff is only a thin skin over the surface of a teenager's life anyway. What is really important to teens today - and the sort of thing which should be important to a YA writer - is the same sort of thing that has ALWAYS been important to young adults - their relationships with friends and family, their place in the world, their desire to make a difference or to hide or to fit in. In order to convincingly write about teenagers you don't need to observe today's teenagers so much as to reach back to your own teenage self and try to embrace the thoughts, feelings and passions that burst out of your life during that turbulent and exciting time. Then you're creating something which should not only stand the test of time, but also something which is about human beings not just 'teens'.

In support of this, I should point out I have not voluntarily spoken to a young adult since I was one. When I write, I write for fourteen or twelve year old me, and it's worked pretty darn well so far.

I would advise anyone wanting to write for a YA market to read extensively in the genre before they decide to write in it, though. Chances are that (like many of my friends) you will be shocked by what is acceptable in a book for young people today. Holly Black, Annette Curtis Klaus, Liz Berry, Margaret Mahy, Garth Nix, Melvin Burgess, Jacqueline Wilson, Sherwood Smith, Tamora Pierce, Phillip Pullman, Gail Carson Levine, Phillip Reeve...those would be good places to start.

aspiringwriter said:

Anyway i've started working on one about a teenager (17) who has a fling with an older woman but likes this girl...anyway, I happen to like the story...

Click to expand...

And that's all that matters.

Tamara Pierce is famous for getting away with the risque. Of course, she's also a bestseller who's in a position to tell schoolastic to stuff it, so she's not necessarily a judge of what a first-time YA writer can get away with.

Like UrsulaV said-- don't don't don't don't talk down to teenagers. The best way to earn a teenager's respect is to respect them, and that means treating them like intelligent human beings. Keep in mind that YA readers are not a representative sample of young adults as a whole. YA readers, just like Adult readers, are generally very intelligent and have wide-ranging imaginations.

Should your work include graphic sex scenes? Probably not. But most schools start sex ed in fifth grade, revisit it in seventh or eighth, and then again in ninth or tenth. Teenagers know what's what, and they know when they're being sent to the kiddie table because an author's unwilling to have faith in them.

interesting topic. I agree with Zolah on embracing your own teenage self and writing from that reference point. A writer needs to be inside a character's skin, and you won't be able to get inside a teen's skin merely by watching them at a coffee shop and making superficial observations. And they are not alien at all! They are unrefined versions of their adult selves, all energy and no wisdom of experience, and that makes them fascinating. That makes them great characters.

Be a substitute teacher. You'll know everything you ever wanted to about teenagers (or, in my case, Middle Graders). The pay's not bad and you get summers off too.

I don't think anyone here was suggesting "making superficial observations". I have a fourteen year old, and on any given day there are at least five to ten kids from 13 to 16 hanging out around my house. I watch them, I hear them, and most importantly, I TALK to them.

I completely agree that trying to use up to date "cool words" and referring to fashion trends will make the work seem dated within a matter of months -- teens change their idea of what's hot and what's not as often as the rest of us change our socks. On the other hand, there are some things that are consistetly important to teenagers -- relationships, school, dealing with parents, feeling like you fit in, trying to cope with sexuality, etc.

The fact is, you can't write realistically about teenagers unless you have observed them in their natural environment. Hence my earlier "gorilla" statement

Also, if you're reading YA and teen novels to get an idea of what is popular, don't just grab a book off the shelf. Ask a teen what they're reading, or ask the librarian what the kids are checking out. My library has a section for Teen Fiction, and it includes copies of Michael Crighton novels and Jane Austen -- the librarian told me she could count on one hand the number of kids who had taken out Jurassic Park.

Another important thing to remember is that teens are way smarter and wolrld-savvy than we give them credit for. They're certainly more open about a lot of things than we were as kids. I'm 37, and I know there are things that my teenage friends and I would NEVER have discussed with other people that kids today are quite open and willing to discuss. Kids are more open about sexuality now than we were twenty years ago, just for starters. They're more also politically aware, they have healthy amount of activism in them when something matters, and they're a lot more independent and self-sufficient at younger ages.

Just like with any demographic, if you're writing for them, you better know your audience.

PattiTheWicked said:

The fact is, you can't write realistically about teenagers unless you have observed them in their natural environment. <SNIP>

Click to expand...

Of course you can! I've written convincingly about murderers, sorcerers, Kings and warriors but I've never observed any of them in their natural environment. The important thing is that they're all human. As another astute commentator pointed out, teenagers are not aliens, just younger adults. They feel the same emotions, have the same desires, fear the same things, as the rest of the human race - and even better, each and every one of us had the teenage experience once. When I write about murderers or Kings I reach into myself and find the parts of myself which I have in common with those people. I do the same when I write about young adults, and it's worked for me so far. Maybe I'm a case of arrested development or something. But I avoid observing teens in their natural environment as much as humanly possible (because I live in a rough area and I like my money and my teeth just fine where they are now).

And you have to remember that teenagers (children in general) behave much differently with adults than they do with each other.

PattiTheWicked said:

They're more also politically aware, they have healthy amount of activism in them when something matters, and they're a lot more independent and self-sufficient at younger ages.

Click to expand...

Very true (and not just talking about myself here). For seven months, I was the third youngest member in a group of 15 teenagers (our youngest was 14, our oldest was 18) who had one common passion: acting. Each week, during our break, there were, of course, the typical conversations about who's going out with who and the upcoming school dance. By the end of the seven months, however, there were debates about religion, the prime minister, you name it. And they were well thought out, informative debates.

Granted, we were a very unique group. As a writer, it was fascinating for me to sit back and watch teenagers from various walks of life and with different interests come together and meld into a unit. The two who engaged in the religious debate were a young woman who is anime-obsessed and a boy (our second youngest) who is a self-admitted partier.

Teenagers are an ever-changing, complex entity which continues to fascinate (and exasperate) adults, children, and fellow teenagers alike. Be prepared to have a plethora of notes if you do decide to pull a Jane Goodall (I rather like the gorilla comparison, myself).

Zolah said:

Of course you can! I've written convincingly about murderers, sorcerers, Kings and warriors but I've never observed any of them in their natural environment. ).

Click to expand...

Are any of these individuals reading your books? If you're writing a book about teens FOR teens, you have to get to know them.

Zolah said:

The important thing is that they're all human. As another astute commentator pointed out, teenagers are not aliens, just younger adults. ).

Click to expand...

I never said they were aliens. I said their culture was an alien one. Not as in little green people from outer space, but as in different than that of the adults who are here discussing it. If you want a perfect example of people who write for teens and young adults without ever having watched them in action, just watch any of the Nickoloden shows like "Zoey 101" or "Ned's Declassified Survival Guide."

Zolah said:

They feel the same emotions, have the same desires, fear the same things, as the rest of the human race - and even better, each and every one of us had the teenage experience once. When I write about murderers or Kings I reach into myself and find the parts of myself which I have in common with those people. I do the same when I write about young adults, and it's worked for me so far. Maybe I'm a case of arrested development or something. But I avoid observing teens in their natural environment as much as humanly possible (because I live in a rough area and I like my money and my teeth just fine where they are now).

Click to expand...

No one is disuputing that you find a way to get inside your teenage self when you write for teens. My point is simply that if you want teens to read your book and not roll their eyes and snork at you, you need to spend some time around some real teenagers. Obviously, if your story takes place in a different time period this isn't quite the rule, but if it's contemporary teen fiction, you have to know your audience. That means listening to what they have to say.

Sorry Patti, but I don't agree. This might be because you and I write in completely different ways, it might be because I remember my teenage years with an unhealthy clarity which would drive most people mad or it might be because I really am a case of arrested development. I don't know. But I do know that teenagers - the way they talk or act - don't seem alien to me in the slightest (or not more than they ever did) and I have no trouble writing credible young adult characters without having gone out and observed groups of young adults in 'their natural environment' (which would be - what? The Mall? School? Striving to keep their HIV positive parents alive in a mud hut in Uganda? Prostituting themselves for drugs in the Russian Republic? Running from police death squads in the slums of Brazil?).